Sandra Fluke and Georgetown's Position of 'Neutrality' (5691)

President DeGioia clarifies university’s policy on contraception in letter, but won’t go public.

WASHINGTON —[THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED FOLLOWING THE RELEASE OF A STATEMENT TODAY BY GEORGETOWN'S PRESIDENT JOHN DEGIOIA ]

Sandra Fluke’s crusade to reverse the anti-contraception policies of Catholic universities has made life tough for Georgetown University’s president, John DeGioia, who has found himself besieged on all sides.

Over the past month, Fluke was invited to a public university forum to discuss her views, and DeGioia has received a petition with 750 names demanding that the university reverse its policy of denying contraception in the student health plan.

But he has also received a letter from more than 100 students and alumni requesting that he hold his ground and publicly correct what the signatories see as the mischaracterization of the university’s — and by extension the Church’s — stance on contraception.

Fluke’s impassioned attack on the university’s student-insurance coverage before Democratic House leaders in February has made the Washington, D.C., campus a high-profile forum for debating the federal contraception mandate. The ensuing discussion has revived past battles over the direction of an elite Jesuit university which, critics predict, will soon be indistinguishable from its Ivy League counterparts.

After Rush Limbaugh created a furor by repeatedly attacking Fluke on his radio talk show, DeGioia won applause for defending the law student’s right to speak out and for calling for a return to civil discourse.

But DeGioia has not responded publicly to Fluke’s charges, and her critics say that has allowed her skewed presentation of the university’s policies to go unchallenged.

[UPDATE:In a letter to the university community dated April 26 and released several hours after this Register story was posted, President DeGioia clarified several points raised by Fluke, though he did not mention her by name.

“I write to you regarding Georgetown’s health insurance and contraceptive coverage in our plans. Many members of our community have expressed different perspectives on this issue. I am grateful for the respectful ways in which you have shared your opinions,” read the letter.

DeGioia noted: “Students are not required to purchase their health insurance through Georgetown University and are free to acquire health insurance through a third party” and added that the university plan “does provide coverage for these prescriptions for students who require them for health reasons unrelated to birth control, as determined by a physician.”

He said the university would not change its“current practice for contraceptive coverage in our student health insurance for the coming year, as allowed for under the current rules issued by the United States Department of Health and Human Services."

“There will also be no change to the university’s approach to contraceptive coverage for employees for 2013,” read the statement.

But in an acknowledgement of the uncertainty posed by a future Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the new health bill, he noted that Georgetown “will be monitoring further regulatory and judicial developments related to the Affordable Care Act.” END OF UPDATE]

In February, when Fluke met with Democratic leaders to stake out her position on the HHS mandate, she criticized Georgetown’s policy of barring contraceptive coverage from the student health plan, asserting that it created a financial burden for students and made it difficult for those who needed contraception for therapeutic purposes to obtain a prescription.

A number of Georgetown alumni and conservative commentators have publicly disputed Fluke's account of students who suffered serious health problems as a result of the university's contraception policy, but DeGioia held back. Yet, in an April 10 letter to Georgetown University law professor Gregg Bloche, who sought the formation of a committee to reassess the health-plan policy, DeGioia implicitly challenged a number of Fluke’s public assertions, though he does not mention her name in the document.

The Register requested and received a copy of this letter, first cited this month in a Washington Post article. The story did not disclose the full text of the letter, and the university still has not posted it online.

DeGioia noted in his letter to Bloche that students at the law school are not required to purchase their insurance through the university health plan and thus have access to plans that provide contraception coverage.

“Students are free to purchase health insurance through a third-party provider. For example, Georgetown Law students may participate in an insurance plan provided by the American Bar Association,” he stated in his letter to Bloche.

He also confirmed that the university's plan “does provide coverage for prescription contraception for students who require it for health reasons unrelated to birth control, as determined by their physician.”

Further, he stressed that the university had no plans to alter its policy on contraception — unless required to do so by law.

“The student health-insurance plan offered through Georgetown is consistent with our Catholic and Jesuit identity and does not cover and has never covered prescription contraceptive birth control.”

DeGioia also referred to "conversations" between the administration and "senior leaders and students" from the law school that were conducted over the previous summer and addressed the same issue.

“As was stated then, we do not intend to change Georgetown’s long-standing practice of excluding contraception coverage for the purposes of birth control from its student health-insurance offerings, unless explicitly required to do so by law. Accordingly, I do not think it fitting to create a committee to consider this policy decision.”

Did Sandra Fluke drive that discussion? DeGioia was not available for comment and thus could not provide further context for his remarks. Nor was he able to answer whether he had future plans to address the confusion generated by Fluke’s remarks.

Pro-Life Students

In her testimony before Democratic House leaders in February, Fluke, a past president of Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice, told her audience: “I attend a Jesuit law school that does not provide contraceptive coverage in its student health plan. And just as we students have faced financial, emotional and medical burdens as a result, employees at religiously affiliated hospitals and institutions and universities across the country have suffered similar burdens.”

On April 16, Fluke received an opportunity to air her views on campus at “A Conversation With Sandra Fluke on Contraception Access,” which was organized by the university's student-run Lecture Fund and Public Policy Institute.

The event was closed to outside press and the public. But it prompted a group of about 100 “Concerned Students and Alumni of Georgetown” to issue its own letter to DeGioia that challenged the decision to organize a campus event that excluded any input from members of the university community that supported Catholic teaching on contraception and wanted Georgetown’s position to be explained and defended.

The signatories called on the university administration to clarify “its position on this fundamental issue of debate” and reminded administrators that Catholic teaching and pro-life work remained an essential part of the university’s legacy.

“[R]ecent activism on campus, such as heightened requests to alter the university’s policy on this issue, the presence of Planned Parenthood on campus and pressure for the university to immediately implement coverage for contraception in Georgetown’s student health-insurance plan, foregoing the allowed extension until August 2013, have caused concern among many students and alumni who support the university’s commitment to its Catholic identity,” read the letter.

Kevin Sullivan, a Georgetown student who helped to organize the petition, said it was time for the administration to step into the public eye. Sullivan backed DeGioia’s call for respectful dialogue, but the student contended that basic facts and First Amendment issues required equal attention.

“I am not quick to condemn the university’s neutral position as a way of advancing dialogue. Our letter was just asking the university to step out from a ‘behind the scenes’ position."

“We want them to clarify the student health-care policy after Sandra Fluke’s stories of students and employees being denied contraception for medical reasons,” said Sullivan, who will graduate in 2014 and is a member of the campus Knights of Columbus group that led the petition effort.

“It is very difficult for us to defend the university if we don’t have the official position. We are not asking the university to fight our battle, as far as student opinion is concerned,” said Sullivan, who reported that Catholic and pro-life groups have already organized events to address the issues.

He confirmed that his group has yet to receive a response from the administration, and he noted that the law school’s advocacy group, Students for Reproductive Justice, just issued a new letter demanding that the university approve contraception coverage in its student health plan by this summer, when non-objecting universities must demonstrate their compliance with the new law.

A Dangerous Place?

Thomas Farr, the director of the Religious Freedom Project at the university’s Berkley Center, reviewed the contents of DeGioia’s letter to Bloche and said he was heartened that “Georgetown does not intend to change its policy of excluding contraceptive coverage for the purposes of birth control.”

But Farr expressed concern about a passage in DeGioia’s letter to Bloche that stated the university would not abandon its policy unless “required to do so by law.”

“In my view, if the HHS mandate, or any other action by government, attempts to force Georgetown University to abandon its most fundamental Catholic principles, the proper recourse is to challenge that mandate in court under the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment,” said Farr, who has organized numerous forums on religious-freedom issues at Georgetown.

The issue at stake is not contraception, but the free exercise of a storied Catholic institution, said Farr. “Georgetown, both as a private American university and as a Catholic institution faithful to the Church’s own vigorous doctrine of religious freedom, should not accept an unconstitutional mandate from any government entity.”

Increasingly, as the debate exposes the deep fissures within a university community that embraces moral principles and scholarship that depart from Catholic teaching, DeGioia will find it tough to maintain a position of "neutrality" -- whatever influence he may be exerting behind the scenes.

In 2003, Cardinal Francis Arinze delivered a commencement address at Georgetown that challenged the university’s drift toward secularization and laid out the resulting contradictions and disunity that process would bring to campus life.

“[A]llow your religion to give your life its essential and major orientation. In our lives, religion is not something marginal, peripheral, additional, optional. My Catholic faith gives meaning and a sense of direction to my life. It gives it unity."

“Without it my life would be like an agglomeration of scattered mosaics,” stated the cardinal, whose strong defense of Catholic teaching on homosexuality prompted a slew of Georgetown faculty to walk out during his address.

Nine years later, Fluke has a place at the table, and Catholics and pro-lifers are clamoring for DeGioia to step up and defend the university's Catholic identity — a demand that will only intensify if the Supreme Court allows the new health law to stand. The Fluke controversy has tested the administration, but a genuine crisis lies ahead, sometime in the future.

“The Obama administration made it clear last August that free sterilization and contraception for college students was a top priority — so much so that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius quickly published the regulations so that they would be effective before student health plans go into effect in August 2012,” noted Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society, which advocates that Catholic universities and colleges strengthen their religious identity.

Judging by Reilly’s predictions, even the most diplomatic university leader will be hard put to stay on the sidelines and engage in lowkey diplomacy to counter the federal government's effort to impos its will.

Stated Reilly, “A Catholic college with a moral campus environment could soon become, by government fiat, a dangerous place where students can get sterilized or go on the pill through a college health plan.”

Comments

What do you call a woman that spends over $3,000 a year on her sex life? A Georgetown University Law student. “I do believe I feel the flames of Hell licking the soles of my feet, not for me, but for Lucifer’s damned.” The person who said that dealt with heretics as well.

Posted by Ray on Friday, Apr 27, 2012 6:41 PM (EST):

The comment by Mike (above) about the Jesuits in America “banging the drum for generations for seemingly endless empowerment of the anti-Catholic state in matters economic and moral” might be a bit disconcerting, but it is, nonetheless, accurate.
One has only to look back on the actions and utterances of some of the more famous Jesuit activists and commentators/authors to find evidence of same.
It is a shame that all of this has helped to diminish the Catholic nature of Jesuit colleges and universities, especially when one considers that the essential purposes Ignatius of Loyola had in mind in establishing the Society of Jesus—- the Soldiers of Christ—- was that the Jesuits would serve in a Counter-Reformation defense of the Church.
Give today’s assault on the Church, we need the renewed zeal of the Soldiers of Christ—- in their “army” and in their institutions.

Posted by Raymond J. Mitchell on Friday, Apr 27, 2012 3:12 PM (EST):

As an undergraduate and graduate school alumnus of Georgetown’s sister school, Boston College, I’ve been as troubled and puzzled by these developments as the people—- most of them, it seems, Georgetown alumni—- posting here.
In the late 1960s, I had the privilege of returning to my Alma Mater and serving in an administrative capacity for seven years. During that period, I was able to see the rising tide of change that was sweeping through Catholic institutions of higher learning as a result of secular cultural forces as well as evolutionary developments in the post-Vatican II Church. In all of this, one could see the coming challenges to Catholic institutions where fidelity to their Catholic roots and identities was concerned.
This recent firestorm caused by the HHS mandate and all the Fluke nonsense and hysteria at Georgetown flows through the same stream bed as all those earlier historical developments mentioned above. It’s just that these recent chapters of the same story are more flagrant, outrageous and in-your-face!
All of it reminds us that our Catholic institutions of higher learning—- and perhaps all Catholic organizations—- are about to face down a concerted and heavy-handed governmental/cultural assault and challenge to the very existence of Catholic religious organizations.
Call it paranoid if you wish, but it seems clear to this educated observer that it’s all part of a deliberate strategy to silence the voice of the Church and its Magisterium in the U.S.—- and everywhere else in the world, for that matter!

Posted by Mike on Friday, Apr 27, 2012 2:36 PM (EST):

The Society of Jesus in America has been banging the drum for generations for seemingly endless empowerment of the anti-Catholic state in matters economic and moral. Their current sputtering over the Fluke circus rings somewhat hollow.

Posted by Tim on Friday, Apr 27, 2012 11:30 AM (EST):

DeGioia, it should be remembered, is the public face of a private Board of Directors, and ultimately he takes his marching orders from them. What is not said anywhere is, what is the position of the Board of Directors of the University?

We got off-track in the 1960’s and 1970’s when colleges and universities, which used to be Catholic, moved to lay boards of directors. Previously run by religious, such as the Jesuits or Holy Cross, they changed, a fact little known or understood by most Catholics.

And the boards of directors tell the President what his or her marching orders are; don’t march to their tune and you can find work elsewhere.

So the real question is, who are those behind the scenes, and what position do they have?

Posted by Maggie on Friday, Apr 27, 2012 9:59 AM (EST):

How did she become a law student when she is so unintelligent as to chose to attend a Catholic University which, by being Catholic, it can be assumed will not provide contraception for contraception sake? There are several non-catholic law schools that she could of attended. If you choose to work for or attend or associate with a Catholic organization then you are freely accepting the Catholic church’s teachings and view points. If they are so against your “world view” then choose to go elsewhere. If people are so pro-choice then they should respect the Catholic church’s choice to follow God’s teachings and God’s laws.

Posted by Paul Philp on Friday, Apr 27, 2012 7:37 AM (EST):

As a graduate of Georgetown SFS 81 and a practicing Catholic I am both bothered and angry about the stands of many Catholic universities which place their academic freedoms and intellectual independence above the charter that declares them a Catholic institution. It is tine that our Catholic universities adhere to the church mandatum and follow church policies whether towards insurance or covering the crucifix so President Obama could give an address at Georgetown. Students and faculty who object can either adhere or leave. There are good students and potential faculty who would come. And afterall the rating for salvation is not the score from US News and World Report or Planned Parenthood but whether we enter heaven. Georgetown… the Jesuits have a vow of obedience to His Holiness…. please kneel and kiss the ring.

Posted by JMJ on Friday, Apr 27, 2012 7:13 AM (EST):

Business as usual at a ‘catholic’ university. First, as Mr. DeGioia seems to be so confused about Church teachings, he should go to Rome and learn his catechism and/or quit his job. There is never, ever a need for the pill as it is so dangerous, as my late daughter found out, when her doctor put her on it for ‘health’ reasons, not for birth control, and she started to have MORE health issues because of it. Even if Obamacare goes into full force, we will all have to fight against it, which will mean for us on S.S. we will lose our benefits and those few people that have an actual job, will be fired and most likely we will all be put into his concentration camps that he has available for us ‘traitors’. We need to stop OBAMINISM NOW!! Psalm 108:8 (some Catholic Bibles 109:8): MAY HIS DAYS BE FEW; MAY ANOTHER TAKE HIS OFFICE” (as long as it is not Biden, the one that thinks that he is a catholic). Why can’t Miss Fluke (is that her real name?) go out and get one of Obama’s jobs that he has created? Where is she getting all of her money from to pay for her ‘education’? +JMJ+

Posted by That Hat Lady on Friday, Apr 27, 2012 7:00 AM (EST):

The only way for Catholic institutions to avoid govt sanction and stay solvent is to simply curtail all health insurance benefits, except AD&D or life insurance policies. Tell employees and students to buy their own health insurance on the free market. The cost of providing first dollar coverage of reproductive services is too expensive for any business to bankroll, even socially permissive ones.

Posted by Janice on Friday, Apr 27, 2012 1:28 AM (EST):

Sandra Fluke is a diversion for Obama to get the female college/university vote. Why should someone’s taxes across the USA pay for someone’s contraceptions but their own? There is nothing free. Someone has to pay for it! Who pays Planned Parenthood and other agencies? Georgetown University needs to stand their ground. All churches need to unite and support the Catholic church. All women have religious and personal choices now. If Sandra doesn’t like the Georgetown University health insurance, I’ sure she can find a different place to get her education to be a lawyer.

Posted by Janice on Friday, Apr 27, 2012 1:15 AM (EST):

Sandra Fluke is a an Obama deversion to get the college/university female vote in the coming election. There is no such thing as free contraception! Who does she think should pay for it? Someone else that pays taxes across the USA should not have to pay for her morality. Who do you think pays for Planned Parenthood and how many other agencies? She should be ashamed. This is a religious and personal choice for each woman. Georgetown University should stand its ground and the Catholic church with the support of all churches unite in this battle. I repeat, religious and personal choice for each woman!

Posted by ADTWF on Thursday, Apr 26, 2012 9:30 PM (EST):

PP is silent because they will have more money in their coffers if they don’t have to “help” low-income women. Put the burden on everyone else, right? And if more women are on birth control, then more will discover themselves to be pregnant because enough women will fail to take the pill properly, will have other medical conditions that make the pill not work, or will be failed by a defective pill or by their own body’s adaptation to the hormones.

These women, poor wee dears, will then HAVE to have an abortion! There’s nothing else to be done! So, off to PP they’ll hop, and PP will pocket the money and smile aaaalllll the way to the bank.

Posted by Janet Warner on Thursday, Apr 26, 2012 9:23 PM (EST):

If contraception were that wrong 98% of the women in the Catholic church would be excommunicated.

Posted by Ed M of Waterbury on Thursday, Apr 26, 2012 6:07 PM (EST):

Georgetown like the infamous Pont. Inst. of Peru is a disgrace of a institution claiming to be Catholic. Mr. Donahue of the Catholic League and the Cardinal Newqman society has volumes of data on Georgetown’s Catholic in name only claim to be catholic misdeeds.This Fluke-feminist -great name for an apostate so called Cafeteria Catholic -is just the latest in years of Georgetown’s non catholic misdeeds going back decades in scandalous behavior by G.U.administrators and staff. Georgetown like the Pont. Inst. in Peru and the wayward nuns of the LCWR( In reality Three percent of USA nuns) need a papal visitation as soon as possible .

Posted by Rachel W. on Thursday, Apr 26, 2012 3:32 PM (EST):

If Sandra Fluke is such a smart lawyer and student, why didn’t she advise “all” of her friends, fellow students, teachers, employees who were suffering under the grave burden of no access to contraception at Georgetown to go to Planned Parenthood? Where I am told contraception is low-cost or free.
-
In case you need to know - there are FOUR - yes - FOUR PP offices within minutes from Georgetown (you can google them yourself, as I just did).
-
PP’s silence in this entire matter speaks volumes. They want to see us cave to their level, hand over to Caesar what was never his in the first place. Stand strong Georgetown - the students of your college who feel they need contraception can find it themselves, for free from PP after all that is what they are there for while Georgetown is called to remain Catholic and Jesuit!

Set up, Georgetown, this is an epic battle for this age. So far, I don’t see Georgetown or Notre Dame as being in line with the Commandments or Mother Church, and all this just 3 weeks after Easter. What gives? Not into salvation anymore? Fluke is a distraction, get to the meat of the matter and help win souls for Christ.
Jesus, I trust in You!
Any why is there all that spammy stuff above this post?

Posted by Cooper on Thursday, Apr 26, 2012 12:53 PM (EST):

just as Paula answered I am startled that a person able to earn $5826 in 4 weeks on the computer. did you see this site cashhuge(com)

Posted by Gary on Thursday, Apr 26, 2012 12:47 PM (EST):

I have seen a tv ad from attorneys in a law suite that gives compenisation for harmful side effects of women from birthcontrol pills. The ad names the names of the birth control pills

Posted by Alvarado on Thursday, Apr 26, 2012 12:39 PM (EST):

just as Paula answered I am startled that a person able to earn $5826 in 4 weeks on the computer. did you see this site url.az/atl

Posted by Bob on Thursday, Apr 26, 2012 10:28 AM (EST):

Notice that Fluke has conveniently overlooked many facts in her “crusade.” Who would want to hire or employ a lawyer who would probably lose many cases in a court of law because they hadn’t got their facts straight? Good job Georgetown Law!

Oh, by the way, if this is really a Catholic school, why all the fuss? If some kid doesn’t like that it’s Catholic, they ‘em to hit the road.

Posted by Fran Gaspari on Thursday, Apr 26, 2012 9:14 AM (EST):

Catholics are being ‘asked’ to take a stand. What Pope Benedict has said repeatedly in interviews both before and after he was elected to the papacy rings true…In the coming years, The Church will lose some members, but then it will grow as it espouses the Truth as Jesus taught and the Church proclaims…!!!

Posted by merno on Thursday, Apr 26, 2012 8:55 AM (EST):

I believe in simplicity. Simplify. This is an ELITE JESUIT COLLEGE built on the blood, sweat, tears and INTEGRITY (moral structure) of the Jesuits. They abided by the 10 Commandments, that is one reason they became so great. Georgetown can not backpaddle and start to enable fornicators. That is against the 10 Commandments. And those who need it “for their health,” well I highly think we all know what she was really saying. Those who need it for their health are already covered. She chose the wrong University to push her hoin’ agenda. We will help you Georgetown - let us sign your petition to keep our schools teachin’ what we are preachin’. I fear for my children.

Posted by Mark on Thursday, Apr 26, 2012 8:05 AM (EST):

I’m quoting above…free sterilization and contraception…
Wow! So what is going here? For a moment lets look past the mission of the catholic university…or anywhere and just try to understand what the mindset is for those promoting sterilization, contraception and I’m guessing ny consequence if the contraception fails. I’m trying to understand why…in the absence of medial necessity, of course, when hormones or hysterectomy, vasectomy might be requid due to cancer or something physicians fel is required for a person…but why would it be for the greater public good to sterilize people outside medical necessity.

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